


What Could Have Been

by SideQuestPublications



Series: Flash Sideways [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Date Rape, Dubious Consent, Flash Sideways, Gen, Lewis Snart's A+ Parenting, Mutual Non-Con, STAR Labs, Time Travel, eidetic memory, honey pot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-22 00:18:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9573266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SideQuestPublications/pseuds/SideQuestPublications
Summary: A criminal venture organized by the Santinis leads Leonard Snart to working for Tess Morgan and Harrison Wells. He is surprised to learn that he actually enjoys working for them... until the Reverse Flash screws it all up. Leonard's friends must cope with his apparent descent into madness as he tries to cope with memories of a timeline that doesn't exist.Story begins early 2000.





	1. Honey Trap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Vincent Santini recruits Leonard Snart to investigate the scientific couple Tess Morgan and Harrison Wells.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: non-con implied/threatened/etc.  
> Because my imaginary muse still believes that Len being abused by his father and everything else that is canonically screwed up about his upbringing _isn't screwed up enough_.  
>  Damn it, Vincent! This story wasn't supposed to be about sex! (I did, however, manage to veto the worst of the threats and "sex" should not be a major topic for the rest of the fic..... operative word being "should.")
> 
> Amber (mentioned) and Len's first boyfriend (also mentioned) copyright me.  
> All others copyright DC, CW, etc.

_Outskirts of Central City, Circa January 2000_  
  
"Leonard!" Lewis yelled.  
  
Leonard winced. Did the man _have_ to shout like that? He only stood five feet away, and he knew full well Leonard was trying to prepare for his GED.  
  
Again.  
  
A hand grabbed Leonard by the back of the neck and hauled him out of the chair before he could set the practice test aside. He froze, unwilling to let his father hurt him, but equally unwilling to increase the man's wrath by resisting.  
  
"Hey, _Leo_!" Lewis spat. He forced Leonard to turn around to face him. "You answer me when I'm talking to you!"  
  
Leonard gritted his teeth at the use of his childhood nickname. He didn't _hate_ the name... if it was Amber or his grandfather addressing him. But Lewis only ever used it to make him feel like a child, to remind him of the power the man still had over him.  
  
"Yes, dad?" he said. He forced himself to look away from the mess that had been his test and kept his face carefully blank. "What did you want?"  
  
"Get your stuff. Santinis got a job for us."  
  
Leonard flinched at that announcement. "Us?" he echoed. " _You're_ the one who works for them; what do they want me for?" Though it really wasn't hard to guess, especially if it was one of Vincent's jobs. But if the Santinis wanted _him_ that meant yet another attempt at the test was down the drain.  
  
"How the hell should I know?" Lewis replied. "But Vincent asked for you specifically."  
  
No, not hard to guess at all.

—FLASH SIDEWAYS: TESS—

Leonard wrapped his arms around his chest, slouched a little, and stuck close to his father's shadow. He tried every trick he could think of to make himself as small as possible without being obvious about it, to remain unnoticed.  
  
It was a wasted effort. Vincent spotted him the moment he trailed into the room.  
  
"Hey, pretty," the older man called, prompting a groan from Lewis. "Here's your mark." He slid a photo over the table towards Leonard. "Tess Morgan, recently married to a Harrison Wells."  
  
Leonard barely glanced at the photo, preferring to stay well away from the table and the man behind it. "Both of them are scientists, right?" On the verge of becoming famous, judging from his reading. He hadn't heard anything about them on the news yet, but the science portion of his test had mentioned them several times.  
  
"Right. Wells thinks he's going to change the world. We need to make sure he's making the right kinds of changes."  
  
"Aren't they based out of Starling City?" Leonard asked. "You must have operatives who know that area better than I do. Which is to say, at all." Not to mention, operatives who didn't need to establish a working identity. Getting away from his father or the Santinis for a while held a definite appeal, but running a job in a new place carried all kinds of risks.  
  
"Your pretty face isn't as well-known in Starling," Vincent insisted. He licked his lips and let his eyes trail down Leonard's body in a way that thoroughly nauseated the younger man.  
  
Lewis made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat but otherwise managed not to react.  
  
"Plus you're a quick study," Vincent continued. He ignored Lewis completely. "You'll have an easier time making good with the woman than my usual operatives."  
  
Leonard stared at the picture, avoiding Vincent's gaze as he throttled down his revulsion and searched for a polite response. "You want me to... seduce her. A _married_ woman."  
  
Vincent snickered at Leonard's obvious disgust. "Not saying you have to sleep with her."  
  
Leonard sighed in resignation. Vincent wasn't _saying_ it, no, but it's what the man always wanted. Frank, at least, acknowledged his other skills, even if most of them were skills Leonard could never be proud of. Frank might have ordered him to kidnap the woman, or search the couple's house, or anything of the sort. But all Vincent ever saw in him was a pretty face; as far as that man was concerned, those other skills only mattered if they got Leonard into someone's bed.  
  
The worst part, Leonard knew, was that it was his own damn fault that Vincent saw him that way.  
  
"But if you do...." Vincent continued.  
  
Leonard nodded. "Get it on camera, I know," he said. "Everyone loves a good scandal, right?" he added, though he knew perfectly well that every video he'd ever made for Vincent had gone straight into the man's private collection.  
  
"Don't complain," Lewis growled. "At least it's a woman this time. Not like that first job you tried to run on your own." He was referring, of course, to the _reason_ Vincent sought him out for these jobs... the one and only time Lewis had ever caught Leonard with a boyfriend.  
  
Leonard had kept Lewis' wrath at bay—barely—by claiming he was only using the boy to run a job. His father, thankfully, had believed the lie completely.  
  
But so had Leonard's boyfriend.  
  
With that lie, Leonard's reputation had been shattered. It hadn't taken long for word to spread through their neighborhood and school, until eventually even Vincent had heard. Bad enough that whatever passed for Leonard's love life was now completely dependent on his baby sister's charms. But when the Santinis had offered _Lewis_ a share of the casino's profits in exchange for Leonard's "services," the man had agreed to their terms without a second thought.  
  
Most days, though, Lewis' bigotry outweighed even his greed, a fact that Leonard was grateful for whenever the Santinis were involved. For if Lewis ever started taking Vincent's hints seriously, he _might_ decide there was profit in making Leonard sleep with the old man... at gunpoint if necessary.  
  
If Leonard was very lucky, Vincent might never fall for such an offer; his dropped hints implied a stronger interest in making the younger man uncomfortable than actually following through on those hints. But that was a gamble that Leonard _never_ wanted to make.  
  
"Yes, sir," Leonard muttered. He snatched up the picture and spun for the door. He didn't wait to see what Vincent wanted with his father; the sooner he got out of there, the sooner he could avoid any other unpleasant orders.  
  
"Oh, before you leave..." Vincent began.  
  
Leonard froze, one hand on the doorknob.  
  
"I've got a small party tonight for my investors," Vincent said. "Should be about half a dozen coming over. You _will_ make sure they enjoy themselves... _right_?"  
  
Leonard's shoulders slumped. "Yes, sir," he muttered.  
  
"I look forward to your performance," Vincent said. "Dismissed."  
  
Leonard fled the room as quickly as decorum allowed. He couldn't quite persuade himself that the laughter ringing in his ears was his imagination.

—FLASH SIDEWAYS: TESS—

Mick rarely slept soundly these days; criminals of his caliber tended to make dangerous enemies, enemies who would jump at the chance to catch him off guard. Even members of their own crew, loyal to their loot at best and to Leonard's asshole of a father at worst, could never be trusted. So it was with a small amount of worry and a great deal of annoyance that he jolted awake, feeling like someone had broken in to his safe house.  
  
He shifted slightly on the bed. To the untrained eye, it would appear that his dreams had turned restless—assuming he hadn't been moving around already—and he had merely rolled over in his sleep. But he cast a wary eye over the room as he moved, searching every possible hiding place, before he was certain he was alone.  
  
Well, alone in _this_ room. The creaking he heard could easily be the building settling, but the clatter downstairs and the bit-back curse definitely were not.  
  
He reached for the holster hidden on the side of his bed and withdrew the gun, then slipped out of bed and tiptoed downstairs.  
  
The sounds were coming from the kitchen.  
  
Mick crept in, gun held out in front of him, until he could spot the intruder....  
  
He lowered the gun with a sigh. "Are you _trying_ to get shot?"  
  
Leonard jumped at Mick's voice and whirled to face him. The dish in his hands tumbled to the floor.  
  
"I was... I was... hungry," the smaller man stammered.  
  
_Hungry_? Hadn't Leonard just been working at some party all night...?  
  
Oh. Right.  
  
_Shit_.  
  
Leonard bent down to retrieve the dish, but he was shaking too much and it kept slipping out of his hands.  
  
"It's too early for this," Mick grumbled. He pushed Leonard toward the table before grabbing the dish himself. He put it back—it was the processed junk food that Mick liked, full of sugar and salt, quick and easy to make and not _at_ _all_ what Leonard needed right now—and pulled out a carton of eggs and a bottled protein shake.  
  
Leonard grimaced at the sight of the shake. Mick knew he hated the things, but he looked like he needed it too badly to complain.  
  
"I didn't mean to wake you," Leonard mumbled.  
  
Mick simply shook his head and busied himself with the eggs while Leonard choked down the shake in record time.  
  
"So...." Mick eventually said. He set down a plate in front of Leonard, and watched with concern as his friend practically inhaled the food. "How many condoms did you go through this time?" he asked mildly.  
  
"Didn't need them," Leonard replied when he stopped eating long enough to breathe.  
  
" _Are you outta your mind!_ "  
  
Leonard cringed.  
  
Mick immediately regretted snapping. It was pure luck that Leonard hadn't picked up any diseases yet, but that luck had to run out sooner or later. And when it did, whatever happened wouldn't be Leonard's fault, not when _Vincent_ was the one who kept forcing him to do these "jobs" without requiring everyone else to use protection.  
  
But he stared down at the smaller man and refused to apologize.  
  
Leonard wilted under Mick's angry glare. "Nobody touched me," he finally said. "It was a business function. Frank was there, too. He's not going to make me do _that_."  
  
Mick snorted. "Then why the hell are you sneaking in here and digging through my fridge at half past fuck in the morning?"  
  
Although with how quickly Leonard had polished off the eggs and the protein shake, it really wasn't that hard to guess. If an appetite that left him that pale and shaking wasn't because of exercise....  
  
"Didn't eat since lunch," Leonard replied.  
  
Mick nodded. That was what he'd figured. Knowing Vincent's shitty brand of humor, Leonard had probably refused to touch anything at the party for fear of being drugged and forced to "entertain" that way.  
  
Whether he _would_ have been drugged was another question entirely. Vincent certainly threatened it often enough, enough that Mick was constantly surprised when he _didn't_ carry out those threats.  
  
"Been busy," Leonard continued. "You know he likes to keep me on my toes."  
  
"Bullshit," Mick said. "That asshole likes to _humiliate_ you, and you know it." He sighed. "You at least slept recently? Or did he keep you too 'busy' for that?"  
  
Leonard's silence was all the answer he needed.  
  
"Go to bed," Mick ordered.  
  
"I... I have another job to prepare for," Leonard protested. "Thanks for the eggs." He pushed himself to his feet.  
  
Mick stood up and blocked his path to the door. " _Bed_ , Len," he insisted. "You look like shit. Feel like it, too, I'll bet. You ain't up to planning anything right now. Go upstairs, and get some sleep, or I swear to god I _will_ tell Lisa what that asshole's been making you do."  
  
Anger flashed in the smaller man's eyes, but only for a second. Leonard nodded and headed for the stairs without further protest.  
  
And that told Mick more than words ever could. If all Leonard had needed was food and rest, he could've walked into any of their safe houses that he liked. If he'd needed help, he could have _ordered_ Mick to take care of him and Mick would have done it. He wouldn't have needed to sneak in.  
  
No, he was scared. Too scared to be alone, but too scared to trust anyone with that information. And _much_ too scared to hide it.... from the rest of the crew, who would gladly take advantage of him, or from Lisa, who would have felt guilty instead of grateful if she ever found out what he was doing to protect her.  
  
The Santinis needed to burn, Mick decided. That much had been clear for a long time. Not just the people, not just the family, but their whole empire. But there was nothing he could do as long as they could go after Leonard or Lisa in revenge.  
  
Mick sighed, grabbed some blankets, and settled himself on the couch. It was going to be a _long_ night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn it, Vincent! This story wasn't supposed to be about sex! (I did, however, manage to veto the worst of the threats and "sex" should not be a major topic for the rest of the fic. Once again, "should" being the operative word.)  
> Though on the plus side, I now have a specific reason for the Rogues to hate the Santinis, assuming canon doesn't ever give us anything definite on that score. And no, I'm not picking on Vincent by making him the perverted old man in that equation--for him, it's more about humiliating Len as much as possible than anything strictly sexual anyway--he just happened to be the first Santini whose name I remembered when I started writing this thing.
> 
> Re: Len's disgust at the "job" Vincent has for him.  
> For my purposes, Len has some very specific ideas regarding what is or is not moral when it comes to sex.  
> He has absolutely no problem with prostitution--might even be willing to go into that line of work himself if asked--provided it is mutually consensual and mutually understood as a business transaction, that sex is being exchanged for money, and that the people involved use adequate protection. He considers it a job like any other, and does not find it demeaning when someone is genuinely willing to get into that line of work.  
> However, there are some things he definitely does not like. He does not like it when the prostitute is in that line of work because they need the money that badly that they think they can't earn it as easily any other way; he finds _that_ to be demeaning, and he is more likely to try to find some way to arrange for them to earn that money without bringing sex into the equation (assuming he doesn't just give them the money outright). He does not like playing the honey trap; seducing someone for deceptive reasons falls under dubious or non-existent consent as far as he's concerned. And he especially hates when it's a case of some pimp telling the prostitute they have no choice who they'll sleep with; obvious non-con in that case, and he's more likely to take the criminal path by abducting that prostitute until he can find some way to get them into a safer situation.  
>  He also hates being watched, but that's more a question of physical vulnerability than anything else.  
> Re: Lewis' disgust at that job. He is not above whoring out his own son for money (or so Len believes), and the only reason he leaves that up to Vincent is because he's more interested in stealing than any of the "work" involved in being a pimp. But he definitely hates when Vincent drops those hints because apparently making Lewis an anti-gay bigot is a common thing in this fandom. (I don't read the comics--yet--so maybe he really is such a bigot and I just don't know it?)  
> Re: Vincent's interest in using Len in that sort of work. Vincent likes to humiliate Len. The sex is just an easy way to accomplish that, end of story. (Though he does enjoy watching those videos.) He might be interested in making his own brothel alongside the casino (and manipulating people like Len into depending on him so much that they'd agree to work for said brothels), but that'd be more a background detail than a plot point and I don't anticipate it applying much to my fics.
> 
> Re: the GED. Len is mentioned in-canon as having dropped out of high school. Most likely out of an interest in looking after Lisa.  
> I figure that once Lisa was old enough to legally take care of herself, and before circumstances drove him so thoroughly into the "I'm very good at it" mentality, Len might've been willing to try to make up for that lost time, to finish his education and make something of himself besides a petty crook.  
> But as for those circumstances, it is also mentioned in one of my fics ([Flash Sideways Chapter 9](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8875501/chapters/20881565), actually) that Lewis tends to sabotage Len's efforts to learn anything worthwhile that doesn't involve stealing. Thus the reference(s) to multiple attempts at the GED; poor guy hasn't taken it even once because his studies are constantly interrupted with the various "jobs" Lewis has for him.
> 
> Re: "Bad enough that whatever passed for Leonard's love life was now completely dependent on his baby sister's charms"  
> Oh, so _that's_ why Lisa keeps making him go on [Blind Dates](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8841547). ;)


	2. SSDD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The following morning, in which Mick tries to help Len get ready for the next unwanted job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: non-con implied/threatened/etc.  
> Because my imaginary muse still believes that Len being abused by his father and everything else that is canonically screwed up about his upbringing isn't screwed up enough.  
> Dear brain: Stop making this story about sex (consensual or otherwise). Stop!
> 
> All characters mentioned or seen copyright DC, CW, etc.

Mick yawned, blinked, and tried to convince his eyes to stay open. A good thief knew to find his sleep wherever he could, but with Lewis or the Santinis in charge,  _good_  sleep was hard to come by.

It was damn near impossible on the tiny couch. Maybe if he dared share the bed with Leonard....

No.

Not after the first time.

Not after Mick had woken, a couple of weeks after his eighteenth birthday and only two days after the third of far too many of Vincent's "parties," to the sensation of fingers on his morning wood.

Never in his life had he jumped out of bed as fast as he had  _that_  morning. Even a gun to his head wouldn't have rattled him as bad, and not because of the touch. He knew—he  _knew_ —how close he had come to fucking Leonard, then still a minor by law and  _far_  too vulnerable to Vincent's manipulations, right then and there.

And that would've been the biggest mistake of his life. Even if Leonard forgave him, the arsonist would never have forgiven himself if he'd allowed things to continue that night.

He'd long since tried to tell himself that Leonard had been half-asleep, that the kid hadn't realized what he was doing, but Mick wasn't as stupid as he let people think. He had never bothered asking, but he had no doubt that Leonard, having noticed the erection, had considered the arsonist's determination to protect him and Lisa, put two and two together, and had come up with five.

It didn't help that Mick got hard at the thought of Leonard needing his protection; the evidence was clear for anyone foolish enough to look.

But that had been the  _last_  time they'd slept in the same bed.

Mick stretched, glanced at his watch, groaned in annoyance, and forced himself up off the couch. Sunrise was still at least an hour off, easily making it feel much earlier than it really was. But it was more than time to get up. Leonard still had that job, whether either of them liked it or not.

A quick pat of his pockets told him he still had Leonard's car keys. Another glance at his watch told him the younger man hadn't been in bed  _nearly_  long enough.

"Sorry, buddy, you need the sleep," Mick grumbled, and ambled into the kitchen with only a single glance at the stairs. Leonard would probably want to throw himself into the job as soon as possible—not that he could really hurry things along, not for one of the old pervert's jobs—but there was simply no reason  _not_  to let the younger man sleep until breakfast was ready.

Mick dug around in the fridge while he thought about what to make. Would Leonard want eggs again? Or maybe one of those weird oatmeal combinations would work with a bit of fruit. The younger man usually tried to make the crew eat healthy leading up to a job, but he rarely had any appetite when he got all antsy like last night. As far as Mick could tell, he'd only eaten the eggs because he'd been practically starving, and he  _might_  decide that they had been enough to tide him over until dinner tonight. The man needed something decent, but it wouldn't do much good if he only picked at his food.

The arsonist found a few likely selections and shoved what he could into the microwave. The stove could wait until they were both properly awake, but maybe he could get Leonard talking while he made the rest of the eggs.

He tapped his foot a few times in impatience, sighed, and walked up the stairs.

Mick tapped on the bedroom door. "Len? Hey, Len, you need to wake up."

He knocked a little harder, then turned in to the bathroom to grab the box of condoms. Even an idiot would know Leonard could just buy more in Starling City, but as jumpy as he'd been last night, even his super brain might not think of it right away.

"Hey,  _Len_!" Mick knocked on the door again. "Breakfast is about ready, come on! Len?" He pushed the door open gently, and took in the empty bed and messy closet.

Even in a state of panic like last night, Leonard was rarely truly sloppy; Mick didn't even have to poke through the mess to realize one his duffel bags was missing.

"You stupid son of a bitch," he grumbled.

 

—FLASH SIDEWAYS: TESS—

 

Leonard had reached the train station on foot long before the sun was due to rise, trusting the winter's chill to help drive away yesterday's fright.

He would have preferred to drive; the station was a fair distance away, a little too far for comfort after how little sleep he'd found, and the night was much too cold even for him. Not to mention how easy a target he was making himself for anyone desperate enough to prowl about.

But he  _must_  have slept, and deeply, at some point during the night, for when he woke he discovered his keys were missing. In his present state he'd never be able to get them back from Mick without waking him.

And the arsonist was entirely too perceptive when it came to the Santinis. Leonard feared that if he'd had to face his partner once more he would have found himself blabbing every detail about what had happened.

At least right now he could blame his shaking on the temperature.

The fact was, he hadn't told Mick the complete truth. Some of it, certainly; enough to satisfy the man's urge to pry without giving him a reason to do anything they'd all regret. The party was a business function, exactly as Leonard had claimed. He hadn't been there to "entertain" the guests. Humiliate himself, perhaps—Vincent had no compunctions about making him dress obscenely, just  _barely_  on the right side of public indecency laws, to hint to the guests at what their loyalty could buy—but nothing more. And nobody had touched him....

But it had been too damned close.

Some of the guests had recognized Leonard from previous parties. And though Vincent hadn't been paid to offer that kind of entertainment this time around, that hadn't stopped two of the guests from cooperating to trap the young thief in the bathroom.

Leonard's already frayed nerves had nearly shattered at their ambush, and he had screamed for help without a moment's concern over the irony of  _who_ , exactly, he was relying on for help.

He had never been so relieved to see Vincent's scowl.

The older man had informed security that the pair were drunk—Leonard suspected that  _drugged_  was more likely, given what other types of entertainment Vincent liked to test out on his guests—and had them promptly escorted out.

Not a word was spoken about the attempted assault.

In truth, Leonard had no idea if they  _would_  have assaulted him. Even high, they might've realized the danger in demanding something Vincent considered his property; they had certainly fled quickly enough when the old man showed his face. It was entirely possible that they would have backed down if Leonard had simply refused them.

But he didn't know what would have happened had Vincent not come to his aid, and he didn't want to be in any position to find out.

"Stop it," he muttered. " _Stop_  it. Get your head in the game. That was last night; it's  _over_."

But it wasn't over. It would never be over, not as long as Lewis or the Santinis had a hold over him. Not as long as they could threaten Lisa.

"Bit cold out," a voice called. "You ever going to get on board?"

Leonard flinched, and glanced up at the conductor.

But the man didn't appear to have noticed him muttering to himself.

"S—sorry," Leonard stammered. "Guess I fell asleep." He wasn't even sure it was a lie; the trains were much too loud to pull in without him noticing if he'd been awake, but he was easily tired enough to have dozed through the noise.

"Safer to do that inside where it's warm," the conductor said. "Well, come on, then. You can get your fill of sleep on board."

"Er... right." Leonard handed over the ticket he'd just purchased, thanking whatever deity might be listening that Mick hadn't tried to steal his wallet last night. At least he had money to buy any supplies he might need.

Speaking of which....

Once safely hidden inside his cabin, he shrugged free of the duffel bag, one of the ones they kept packed in advance, and dug through it to see what he'd managed to sneak out of the house.

Cash and a few prepaid credit cards. Two cameras, one cheap Polaroid, one professional, both bought—they'd never risk getting caught with stolen merchandise when  _preparing_  a heist. A few notebooks, writing utensils, and mathematical tools.

_Dammit._  He'd been so focused on getting out of the house without waking Mick that he hadn't given himself the time to search for  _real_  supplies; all he had now was a bag full of the kinds of tools they used when casing a new place.

_Sloppy_.

At least these couldn't be recognized as a thief's tools, but they were hardly suitable for dealing with a famous scientist.

"Got some blankets for you," the conductor said.

Leonard jumped at the voice and dropped one of the notebooks.  _Gods_ , he was tired.

The conductor put down the blankets and retrieved the notebook. He hesitated on at the page it had fallen on.

Leonard tried not to look stricken as the man peered a sketch that, in his own mind, was a dead ringer for the museum exhibit they'd hit last week.

_Why the hell did Mick keep those?_

"Art student?" the conductor finally asked.

Leonard flicked a glance at the open page. "Er.... yeah," he mumbled. "It's just a hobby," he added hastily, before the conductor could ask any follow-up questions. He could draw most things from memory, even without the benefit of the cameras, but he didn't know enough about art to pass himself off as a real artist.

The conductor shrugged. Either he didn't notice the guilty look on Leonard's face, or he misinterpreted its cause. "Family can be hard to deal with, can't it? Especially when it comes to our 'hobbies.'"

"Huh?" What was he talking about? How had he gotten "family" from a hobby? Lewis actually  _approved_  of Leonard's drawings, though certainly not for any artistic reasons. They couldn't always get their hands on blueprints when casing a new place, and the better cameras tended to attract attention; sometimes his sketches were all the crew had to work with when making their plans.

The conductor shrugged again. "Got a cousin with a similar 'hobby.' Makes  _damn_  good money at it, too, better than her folks make at their nine-to-fives, and they still think she's wasting her time." He nodded at the open page again. "I mean, if it's just a hobby to you, that's fine, but if it's your folks who don't approve, that ought to be  _their_  problem, not yours. Just saying." He handed the notebook back. "Guess I ought to leave you to your sleep and get this thing moving. I'll send someone to check on you when we get close to Starling."

"Thank you," Leonard murmured as the man walked away. He arranged the blankets around himself in a comfortable nest, glanced out the window at the blowing snow, hoping for one last look at Central City as the train pulled out of the station.

He stared, instead, at his car idling by the railroad crossing.

Mick stared back through the windshield and lifted one hand.

Leonard closed the shade before his friend could so much as wave farewell.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ergh... took me long enough to come up with this chapter. And then to edit to my liking.  
> But once I got it written, figuring out how to veto the worst parts of the "sex" element probably took the longest. And it still focuses more on the subject than I'd like.
> 
> Re: Len and Mick's ages.  
> I kept going back and forth on whether or not to make a direct reference to Len's age in that one paragraph, and you'll note that I finally settled for at least referring to him as a minor.  
> In terms of hard numbers, however...  
> I've said elsewhere that my fics assume that Len and Lisa's age gap is much smaller than what exists between their respective actors (you'll note in the mature-rated Confessions that Lisa is not only born, but capable of walking around and talking, when Len is nine years old-no solid numbers for her there, but my headcanon has her conceived during a conjugal visit after Lewis attempted to steal/fence that emerald), and clearly I can't use the actors' ages for some characters (I seem to recall tombstones in Arrow that gave character birth dates as vastly different than their respective actors). But Len is canonically established as having the same birthdate as his respective actor Wentworth Miller, and, though I don't recall a specific mention in any of the shows, I am assuming the same for Mick/Dominic Purcell.  
> Thus, in that scene that was "after the third of far too many of Vincent's parties," a couple of weeks after Mick turned 18 (born February 1970), Len (born June 1972) would still be 15. Past the age of consent or not depends on what laws are in place wherever Central City is located, and I know some real world places consider the age gap to be just as important as the fact of adult status or lack thereof (thus Mick having only just turned 18 might mean it doesn't legally count as an adult/minor problem). But still young enough to make Mick seriously uncomfortable about how much he enjoyed the touch and wanted things to continue in the first place.  
> Not to mention Vincent's efforts to seriously screw up Len's understanding of sex and consent. While he doesn't care about age of consent, given that he's forced Len on many occasions to sleep with people at least twice Mick's age, he would not hesitate to throw Len's friend and would-be protector under the bus if he thought the two were sleeping together-Mick ain't paying Vincent for that pleasure, after all.
> 
> That also being said, that reference does throw off some of the other things I'd had planned elsewhere. Len was supposed to be dating Christopher when he was 16 in my original headcanon, but if he's already working for Vincent at 15, that means Christopher's betrayal (see first chapter of this fic) had to occur some time sooner.  
> And of course there is the matter of Len being sent to Juvie (canonically established) some time when he was 14. I don't remember the show saying how long he was there, so there is some room for speculating, but still...
> 
> Re: art student.  
> I had planned on having Len meet Tess under the guise of an art student-making him a skilled enough artist to sketch out his own blueprints for the places they rob just seemed a completely natural choice, especially after factoring in his eidetic memory-but I hadn't worked out why he settled on that persona.  
> Guess the conductor gave him that idea? ;)


End file.
